Auburn closes out fall season with Battle at the Beach

SAN JOSE DEL CABO, Mexico – Coming off a second-place finish at the Alexa Stirling Intercollegiate, No. 22 Auburn hopes to keep the momentum going this weekend in the Battle at the Beach. The event runs Friday to Sunday and will take place at Club Campestre (par 71; 6,202 yards), just a few miles north of Cabo San Lucas.
 
The Tigers played particularly well in Sunday's final round last weekend, shooting a 290 (+2) at the Atlanta Athletic Club, and now as they head into the last tournament of the fall season, there's a belief that this group can compete with anybody.  
 
"It's definitely a confidence booster for the team," Auburn sophomore Mychael O'Berry said. "I think it just added a belief that we can compete with the best and actually win. I know coach is talking to us about how we haven't really talked about winning that much. It was just cool to see how close we came and just know how close we actually are to getting it done."
 
 "We've been working a lot on the mental game," added head coach Melissa Luellen. "And I think mentally they really proved themselves. To be able to post some scores like that on such a difficult golf course – it was truly a championship course – it lends itself well."
 
Sophomore Kaleigh Telfer, who finished third overall in the last tournament, will once again take the top spot in Auburn's lineup this weekend. She'll be followed by O'Berry (No. 2), Julie McCarthy (No. 3), Elena Hualde Zúñiga (No. 4) and Brooke Sansom (No. 5).
 
The Tigers also brought Anika Bolcíková to Mexico to play as individual at the event. The freshman won the Magnolia Invitational playing as an individual last month.
 
Auburn will be paired with Mississippi State, Tulane and Vanderbilt for the first round and will tee off at 10:30 a.m. CT on Friday. Live scoring is available on BirdieFire.com.
 
The field
 
The 17-team field for this year's Battle at the Beach includes Auburn, Baylor, Clemson, Denver, Houston, Iowa, Mississippi State, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, TCU, Tulane, Tulsa, UAB, Vanderbilt and Virginia Tech.
 
Including Auburn, six of the 17 teams are ranked in the top 25 via Golfstat. Three of the teams – Texas, Vanderbilt and Virginia – are ranked in the top 10.
 
Super sophomores
 
It's no surprise to see a trio of sophomores – Telfer, O'Berry and McCarthy – at the top of Auburn's lineup this weekend. The group has been playing as well as anybody this season, and all three players placed in the top five at the last tournament.
 
Telfer, in particular, has finished four of her seven rounds this season at par or better. She's currently ranked the No. 62 player in the country on Golfstat.
 
Changing climates
 
Luellen put it best when she said that the Tigers will be turning in their hot hands for sunscreen when they play in Mexico this weekend. The course, too, is vastly different from what they played on in their first three tournaments this season.
 
"This is a completely different style of course we're going to," Luellen said. "It's a desert style – a little harder to pick out good targets because it's just this vast openness whereas last week we had a lot of trees. So it's fun just to play a different style of course."
 
The good news is that Auburn played in this same tournament last year, so four of the six players competing have played on the course before.